On October 31st every year a tradition occurs in North America unlike most others. The night is filled horrifying witches, zombies covered in stitches, and also treats that are pretty delicious. This holiday is of course Halloween, where young kids go house to house collecting candy from strangers and showing off their costumes. While this holiday has become a great source of enjoyment for Americans, putting aside the huge irony of thousands of kids taking candy from absolute strangers, this was not always the case surrounding Halloweens origin.
Halloween, or formerly known as Samhain (pronounced sow-in), was a Celtic festival that existed a little over 2000 years ago to symbolize the end of the summer and harvesting of crops. It also was fabled to be a mystical night where the dead spirits came to life destroying fields which served to mentally prepare the Celtic people for the long winter ahead.
The reason behind dark imagery being associated with Halloween is because the Celts viewed the winter as a time where many humans die. Hence, many ancient Celtic stories tell of ghastly apparitions inspiring the Celts to stay strong and last the winter.
Turns out the spooky stories worked and the Celtic people managed to make it through many winters.
This of course did not last forever; soon after, in 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered most of the Celtic territory. After being under the control of the Roman Empire, the festival of Samhain was replaced with a two day festival celebrating two special Roman holidays. The first was the festival of Feralia which celebrated the passing of the dead and the second day was celebrating the festival of Pomona, a Roman goddess known for being the goddess of trees and fruit. From this celebration of Pomona incorporated with the Celtic the tradition of bobbing for apples, a tradition performed on Halloween took shape.
Time moved on, the Roman Empire fell and in the ninth century Christianity spread across Europe. In 1000 AD, the church made November 2nd "All Souls Day" a day to honor those who have passed. The goal was to replace the Celtic holiday Samhain with a church sanctioned one yet the Celtic people celebrated the holiday the same dressing up in costumes, lighting huge bonfires, and marching in parades. The All Saints Day festival translated as "All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween."
During colonial England, the church tried again to stamp out the tradition of Halloween using the strict beliefs of the Protestant church. But the tradition remained very commonplace in Maryland and the southern colonies. The tradition really took its modern shape in the year 1846 due to many Irish families immigrating to North America because of the Ireland potato famine. With help of Celtic natives, the celebration of Halloween became similar to what it is today, going house to house asking for candy and playing spooky pranks.
In the end, Halloween may just be some crazy festival celebrating the religion of a lost civilization; but it was strong enough to stand the test of time-- two thousand years (and counting) despite the rise and fall of empires and many different religions, it has stayed as a part of many cultures throughout human history.
Have fun celebrating Halloween and share what you have learned here today so everyone knows the true origin of this odd holiday.